Democratic Left

Statement of the Democratic Socialists of American National Political Committee

Democratic Socialists of America joins the broad civil rights and progressive community in expressing its outrage at the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the murder of Trayvon Martin. Only an insane, ALEC-inspired “stand your ground law” combined with the racist assumption that African Americans automatically pose a threat to anyone’s person and property enabled George Zimmerman to be acquitted.

When the key organizers of the “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom” gathered on the morning after the epic events of August 28, 1963 – which began with the delivery of a “living petition” for racial justice by a quarter of a million Americans and finished with the president of the United States hailing the march as a stride toward “translating civil rights from principles into practice” – they did so at the Socialist Party’s National Conference on Civil Rights.

A Libertarian-leaning Republican, an anarchist, a Democrat, and a Democratic Socialist walk into a bar... Sounds like the beginning of a joke, but Texas politics make strange bedfellows, and last week, I found myself joining with a diverse group of people to fight the anti-woman legislation being snuck into a special legislative session.

Danish Ambassador Peter Taksoe-Jensen spent a weekend in Vermont this month traveling with me to town meetings in Burlington, Brattleboro and Montpelier. Large crowds came out to learn about a social system very different from our own which provides extraordinary security and opportunity for the people of Denmark.

Michael Walzer famously asked if there could be a decent Left. Well, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) proved that there certainly is no decent Right. The WSJ recent "After the Coup in Cairo" opined: "Egyptians would be lucky if their new ruling generals turn out to be in the mold of Chile's Augusto Pinochet, who took power amid chaos but hired free-market reformers and midwifed a transition to democracy."

The June unemployment situation, as depicted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in its July 5 report, looks like May redux: Unemployment rate stuck at 7.6 percent; number of persons unemployed stuck at 11.8 million; number of persons unemployed for at least 27 weeks stuck at about 4.3 million or 36.7 percrnt of all unemployed persons. Even the increase in the number of persons employed (195,000 vs. 175,000 in May) was far too small to force a change in the long-term trajectory of job creation, which has averaged 182,000 per month over the last year.

The 4th of July is typically seen as a celebration of United States history that tells one narrative: one of the Founding Fathers, patriotism bordering on and sometimes exceeding nationalism, and our military prowess. This narrative tells only a very small part of America’s political history. Leftism, whether socialist, communist, or anarchist, has a long history in the United States and has dramatically influenced different epochs of American history. Though this narrative is downplayed by mainstream historians, high schools, and the capitalist two-party system that controls them, America has a long and proud tradition of leftist radicalism.

DSA was concerned to find out that the company that provides our website and online organizing infrastructure, NationBuilder, had as a client the Trump campaign and other right-wing candidates. Progressives built this kind of infrastructure and tools for digital organizing and we have now lost that organizing edge. We are moving to identify other options for a CMS/CRM. As an under-resourced, member funded organization, this move will take time for us to carry out, but it is an important statement for us to make.